


The Other End of the Rope

by signalbeam



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Jossed, Pre-Canon, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-24
Updated: 2012-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-30 01:33:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signalbeam/pseuds/signalbeam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The person who is calling has a history of making subversive statements and using inappropriate language. Are you sure you want to take this call?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other End of the Rope

_The person who is calling has a history of making subversive statements and using inappropriate language. Are you sure you want to take this call?_

You’ve gotten tons of calls from Lalonde over the years, and she’s been drunk every time. You don’t even have to put her name in your phonebook or anything; the drones' grouchy announcements are as good as caller ID. She’s the only person who gets the _this call is being monitored for quality assurance_ drone without disappearing the next day. 

You can hear someone breathing and the sound of some classical violin concerto. It’s one in the morning in Washington, so it’s four in New York; you check your calendar, and wince. You stuff a t-shirt in the crack between your carpet and the door, turn on your lamp, and settle into your bed. The music on the other end comes to a crescendo of crashing violins. Lalonde sniffles—extra loudly, you think, to let you know she’s there, but wants you to say something first.

“Hello?” you say. 

Lalonde’s first statement is, as always, “Janey, you've _got_ to buy a phone that’s not going to mind control you.” 

“I could always use a payphone.” 

“Hel-lo, earth to Jane, it’s two thousand eleven. Wake up, Freud’s dead, big whoop, the funeral's over and everyone’s hangover is gone, way too be a century late.” 

“To,” you correct automatically. 

“That’s the one I was using, how do you know if I’m wrong or not? They’re hormonyms.” Sniffle. “Homophobes.”

“Tsk, tsk, they're called homophones!” you say. “Homonyms have the same spelling.”

“Yes, good, keep saying stuff like that. I love you. The way your naive little head is always full of grammar and shit and oh my god sometimes I want to shake you and tell you, ‘Crocker, unplug thouself—theeself—’ Jane, help me, I don’t know what comes next, jesus. ‘From the machine.’”

You’ve been here before, or places like here before. You’re here every time Lalonde’s mother is on a book tour— _a book tour of heabevn!_ Lalonde said once, and then covered it up with a string of incredibly unconvincing _lmfamos_ and _lols_ and _herrghs_ —or during the beginning of December and then all through the holidays. You once bought her a box set of her mother’s old self-published stuff, written under the penname of Lolar Dersen, and she made you read select passages out loud. Then she went on a long, censored speech for ten minutes without breathing once, and passed out without hanging up. It can be hard following her sometimes. You wish she’d stop talking like a conspiracy nut. You’re tired of telling the drones she’s just drunk and not actually a threat. 

“Did I say all of that, omg.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, for her pride’s sake. She’s ridiculous. You’re certain she actually means half of the Freudian slips she spits out. You’re so fond of her sometimes, but really. Or as she might say, _for realsies_. “But it’s sweet of you to care so much.” 

“Yeah, I care, I totes care.” The music comes to an end. You hear Lalonde fussing with some equipment. The music comes on again. It’s somber and severe. You don’t know the title, but it’s in a minor key. It sounds German. “Jane, Jane, so yesterday was mother’s day, right?” 

Oh boy. 

You’ve tried asking Strider about Roxy and her mother, and all he said was, “Ah, the eternal question: did God drop the pocketwatch on the beach for it to be found by the intrepid explorer, or was it merely a watch in the pocket of a stumbling drunk who fell into the river half a mile upstream and drowned?” And you said, “Strider, this is serious,” and he said, “What you’re asking for is a manual on Roxy Lalonde,” and then, “It doesn’t exist.” 

Dirk Strider has sometimes been known to be a big old pill. 

“What did you do for the Bladderwitch today?” Lalonde continues, and you can see her on the couch of her grandiosely enormous house—you live with your Dad because it instills important values such as _humility_ and _modesty_ and _living within your means_ , all things you sometimes wonder if Lalonde has heard of—sitting next to a speaker. Her fingers are probably jittering, tapping the leather armrest in a two-two-three-one-two rhythm. She’s drunk, so she’s probably thrown herself over the whole thing like she’s dying. “Gave her a card that says, hey, thanks for” _beep_ and _beep_ and _beep_ “my mom and making me” _beep_ “her by myself, it was real awesome, I just loved spending all that time with the shovel and tossing the” _beep_ “or were you just like, thanks for brainwashing me into thinking that my bffsie’s mom isn’t” _beep_ “or Strubel’s bro is” _beep_ “do you even know,” she says, and you don’t have a clue what’s going on, your ears are still ringing with the content blocker, “I keep trying to tell you it, about how the” _beep_ “and” _beep_ “—you’re not even getting half of this and it’s all because of how much your battermom is a total fucking” _beep_.

“Okay, wow, good heavens,” you say. “I’m sorry, everything got beeped out again. Do you want to switch to chat?” 

“No,” Lalonde says, and then adds, “lol.” 

“Maybe I can help you cool your heels over a medium where every other line won’t be taken out,” you say. “For crying out loud, Lalonde, someone needs to wash your mouth with soap.” 

“No, no, Jane, you’re missing the whole point,” she says. “Anyway, Batterbitch has her eyes everywhere, so it doesn’t matter, see? And this way I can say anything to you. Everything. Anything. Like, I love you and shit. God, you make me want to puke.” 

“Let’s say,” you say, “that Betty is—” 

“Wait, I really have to hurl.” 

“Okay,” you say. You listen to her gurgle. And then you say: “She took me out for dinner and we baked a six-layer cake, and I'll have you know she was perfectly nice about the whole thing.” 

“Six is one third of the number of _Satan_.” Her laugh sounds wet and exhausted. “I need to get to the bathroom, fuuuckkk.” 

“Well, go on, I don’t want to hear you vomiting on your phone again,” you say. “Why does your mother keep buying you replacements? You’re developing dreadful habits.” 

“Ugh, you’re the best, hurk.” 

She leaves her phone on the couch, near the speaker. The violin goes on a long, agonizing vibrato streak. You imagine her wandering about her airy, open house, alone. You could see her right now, if you wished—if she shows up in the port. She’s a hard find. And she has a habit of fading out of your head. Right now all you can remember is a ski-slope nose and a scoop-necked t-shirt. You don't have a memory for faces. That's what it is. 

You hear something on the other end that sounds suspiciously like a muffled sob. “ _I’m_ the one who shot JFK,” she says. 

“Good lord.”

“I burned down the library of Alexandria,” she says. “I went down on Cleopatra and gave Mark Antony a handjob at the same time. I stabbed King Richard’s horse. Ten times. I gave King Richard’s horse _syphilis_.” 

“Those are abso-tooting-lutely impossible,” you say. “You weren’t even born then.” 

“I gave Alexander the Great smallpox. I married a million bitches,” she says. “Only not. But you already knew that because you’re such a smartyasspants. Sometimes I wish you’d just belief me. Bereave. Beliege me. Because” _beep_ “and” _beep_ “and, and, I love you, a lot. Love. Love you. I love you so much, Jane, I’m so in love with you, and all you hear is beep, beep, beep, beep, Crockerbot.” 

The quiet on the other end sounds like light or revelation—or maybe just the dead, hot silence of an actor finishing a monologue and hearing no applause. The moment after shock and before humiliation. You are so tired, sometimes, of not understanding what she’s talking about, of her willfully misunderstanding you. You try—you try all the time for her. You do. It scares you, the way she makes dark spots appear where there aren’t any; they’re so deep and so sure that you wonder if they’ve always been there, and you’ve just been wrong. But you aren’t wrong, you _aren’t_. Still. She’s your best friend, and you’d do anything for her, or at least, nearly anything, and then more. 

“Unless I've got my wires crossed, the word you’re looking for is ‘believe.’”

“Oh fuck me,” she croaks.

“I heard you,” you say. She breathes like you’ve stung her through the heart. “I _heard_ you,” you say. You want to say it again, ferociously, over and over until you hurt something in your throat. You’re positively lightheaded. You’re positively dead. “I don’t—I’m sorry, I wish the drones didn’t block you out like that, either. Do you want me to get one of those pay-as-you-go phones? I could make an acquisition on the black market, if that’d make you feel better. Would it?” 

_We detect a high level of emotional distress and possible treason in this conversation_ , says the drone. _The call will self-terminate in ten seconds. Ten._

“Lalonde,” you say. “Rolal. Are you there?” 

“God,” she says; and, for no reason at all, begins to cry.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The lies we've led around (Winnipeg debug)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/721817) by [gloss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss)




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